Tupac Shakur Quotes

Let me say for the record, I am not a gangster and never have been. I'm not the thief who grabs your purse. I'm not the guy who jacks your car. I'm not down with people who steal and hurt others. I'm just a brother who fights back. I'm not some violent closet psycho. I've got a job. I'm an artist.

I've never been in a street fight.

Before my father would open up a karate school in a particular neighborhood, he'd clean up the block - kick all the drug dealers and gang bangers off the block. My father was very clear: 'I've got guns too, and I'll kill you just as much as a rival gang would.' And he meant it. He was a man of many facets and complexities.

I'm not about trying to be out here fighting and shooting, stabbing and, you know, all that crap, man.

If it was up to me, frankly I would be hanging some of the gang leaders from our street lamps.

I know Chicago cops. They're tough. They have to be. The whole city would explode. It's like a bomb, Chicago.

Where I come from, once word gets out that you've cooperated with the police, that only makes you a bigger target of criminal violence. That is a dark reality in so many neighborhoods like mine across America. I'm not saying its right, but it's reality.

In the hood, you have a problem with somebody, you have to deal with it. The outcome is pretty immediate.

My first boxing experience came at around 14. There was always confrontation in the area I grew up in. My mentality, I'll be honest, was if someone tries it with me, I want to be able to knock them out.

There's no such thing as a lucky punch. You throw to hurt someone and if you hurt someone, job done.

Guys get hurt in fights. It doesn't mean you stop a fight every time somebody gets hurt.

I've been in many street fights. I fought street fights for my friends to protect them.

I’m not a violent person, Sydney. Not at all. I’ll make love over war any day. But I swear, if they’d hurt you—” “They didn’t,” I said firmly. I refused to let him know how scared I’d been because I was afraid he might go after them. “I’m fine. You came to the rescue.” A smile played at his lips. “Something tells me you would’ve rescued yourself.” And like that, the smile vanished. “But spirit would’ve been a lot more effective than a branch.” “Your treejitsu was very effective.

At times we feel wounded, hurt, disappointed, disgusted, resentful, sick of it all. At other times we feel skeptical, outraged, robbed, beaten. We chafe, hate, overlook. Then again we feel like ignoring, defying and fighting for every right that belongs to us as human beings.

I like fighting, but I hate hurting people.

Outside from with my older brother - and this would have stopped about age 12 - I haven't been in a physical fight in my life. We used to punch each other, but that was little kid punching. You're too scared to hit anybody really.

The consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition.

I've never been the battle guy that people perceive me as. I don't even want to battle. I take it to the people, man. I say what I got to say. You know what I'm saying? I'm like the guy that has the gun and shoots you when you try to rob him, you know? I don't really pull out the inches and try to shoot the brothers.

I felt a strange tightness coming over me, and I reacted instinctively – for the first time in a long, long while – by slipping my notebook into my belt and reaching down to take off my watch. The first thing to go in a street fight is your watch, and once you’ve lost a few, you develop a certain instinct that lets you know when it’s time to get the thing off your wrist and into a safe pocket.

I realized that anyone who dared to hurt me would suffer his full wrath, and Walt wasn’t going to hold him back.

I flee what I can't fight. What can only do me harm.

For once in your life, here's your miracle, stand up and fight.

As far as bands doing that in a way where they think they're going to fight the government, the only people they're really hurting is the fans.

As a professional athlete, I can tell you I feel every single emotion and not one of them ever helped me in a fist-fight before. And not one of them has ever hurt me in a fist-fight, either. The only thing that has helped me is my skills and the only thing that hurt me is my opponent's skills.

At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us how to behave in the world. You teach us to not fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share - not be greedy: then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?